Danielson, Chapter 2

Continuing the book study with Danielson's book, "Enhancing Professional Practice: A framework for teaching" 2nd ed.

Our 21st Century policy makers have come to the conclusion that the traditional view of learning, focused on knowledge and procedures of low cognitive challenge and the regurgitation (love that word) of superficial understanding, does not constitute learning that will be productive or effective in our global society.
Students of the 21st Century must be able to solve complex problems, design more efficient techniques to accomplish work, make informed choices at the ballot boxes, and discharge the complex responsibilities as a juror.  Basic information and knowledge is important, but deep conceptual understanding is needed.  The skill of evaluating arguments, analyzing information, and drawing conclusions is critical for survival.
Students (ALL STUDENTS) must be able to acquire deep and flexible understanding of complex content, formulate and test hypotheses, analyze information, and relate one part of learning to another.  In order for this to take place, teachers themselves must possess these same skills.  They must have a deep and flexible understanding of content in order to move their students from memorization to analysis and interpretation.  High-level learning by students DEMANDS high-level instruction by teachers.

WOW!  That is a mouthful on the first 2 pages of Chapter 2.  (To borrow from my religious upbringing - I could stop here and preach a while!)
Since the formation of NCLB, and perhaps even further back, we have been teaching students to pass assessments.  We provide them with the tricks of the trade to pass a few more items on their exams.  We teach them clues to help them get correct answers, but do they know one thing about what we have just done to beat the assessment system?  (And as the little lady in the new Madea Play would say, "Shut your mouth, and keep on talking, Girl!" )  I understand what we do.  I understand why we do it. But I don't agree with it one bit.
I recently made a friend at the Moline airport.  His name was Mason.  He was only 18 months old.  For some reason, Mason wanted to communicate with me, even though his aunt and his mom tried to get him to stop.  Every couple of minutes Mason would run away from his mom or aunt and run to where I was sitting in a little coffee shop.  He would stand on the other side of the little roped barrier, and do things to get my attention (like slapping the cording on the barrier).  He was the cutest thing.  I even went and bought him a soft football in the gift shop.  He loved it.  I had a friend for the rest of the time I was sitting in the airport.  My point is, Mason wanted to explore.  He wanted to understand his surroundings, and yet his mom and aunt kept saying to him, "No, Mason." "Mason, don't do that." "Mason, come back here."  Oh Mason understood those commands, but there was so much more Mason could have learned that day if he didn't have so many limitations.
I, PERSONALLY, think we put too many limitations on kids.  We are so scared they are not going to score what we want them to score on a high stakes assessments, that we LIMIT their learning.  We say things like, "Do the math problem this way.  Don't change it. Follow the rules.  Don't think about.  Just look at the picture and remember what we told you.  Look for a clue in the question to help you with the answer."  Gosh, I wished for just once someone would give kids a proverbial football and say, "Here, go explore!  See what you can learn."  For you see, Mason realized the football made a really cool sound when he slammed it against the tiled floor of the airport, but it didn't make a cool sound on the carpet.  So guess where Mason kept heading with his football?  You got it!  The tiled floor it is.  Give our kids an opportunity to LEARN and EXPLORE not simply REGURGITATE!

And that's my 2 cents.

Sarah